Business Mirror: Investor to give $1-million funding for PHL start-ups

FILIPINO serial entrepreneur and investor, Jose “Joe” Maristela III, said he is making available $1-M investment fund for start-up Filipino enterprises through his venture-capital firm, Katalyst.PH.

Despite the emergence of local start-up accelerators, innovation hubs, venture capitalists (VCs) and angel investors, in the Philippine start-up scene, the ecosystem still faces many barriers. Capital flowing in is too small compared to other markets.

The government road map in creating 500 start-ups with total funding of $200 million and valuation of $2 billion by 2020 is quite a stretch, but definitely not impossible because of the limitless possibilities tech start-ups have.

Maristela’s outlook in the Philippine start-up economy is very positive, due to his high regard for the talents and skills of Filipino entrepreneurs. With Satoshi Citadel Industries’ (SCI) recent undisclosed amount of seed funding from Korean Web giant Kakao’s venture-capital arm KVG, Maristela is currently driven to replicate this through the new wave of investment fund he is putting in. “In order for a start-up to really grow exponentially, they need to have strong strategic partners and investors. It is only after almost a year that I found the right partner for SCI. John Park, the CEO of KVG and I agreed there is a very promising future for finance in the Asean region. We believe SCI will play a critical role in unearthing these potentials,” Maristela said.